1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to tool holders, and more particularly relates to a carpenter's tool holder that is supported from a wearer's waist belt.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Carpenters, electricians, handymen/women, and other persons in the construction and repair trades generally want to carry the tools of their profession in some manner about their person for ease of access to the tools that they expect to use on the job.
In the prior art, various arrangements have been developed for holding about the waist of the wearer tool holders or tool pouches, which are capable of carrying multiple tools, including hammers, hatchets, screw drivers (both regular and Phillips), pliers (sometimes of different sizes), wire cutters, wrenches (of different sizes), tape rule devices, folding rules, flashlights, electrical insulating tapes, power drill Jacob's chuck keys, Allen wrenches, and many other kinds of tools that are considered convenient to have close at hand.
The inventor has found, however, that the collective weight of all of these tools during the course of a day's construction work becomes quite tiring and uncomfortable. Such multiple-tool pouches or tool holders may appear to be satisfactory to wear while one is walking around in an erect position, but when the wearer is bending and/or crouching on the job or climbing up and down ladders and crawling into tight spaces or over the surface of a roof, some tools will often fall out of the pouch or tool holder. The convenience of having all of the tools at hand, therefore, is offset somewhat by having to grab at tools to keep them from falling out or having to bend over to retrieve fallen tools. This interferes with giving attention to the job at hand.
Tape rule devices are essential tools to have and use in the construction trades. The inventor has found that it is inconvenient, however, to carry a tape rule device in his pocket because of the sheer bulk of it and the difficulty entailed in retrieving it from the pocket when he is in a crouched position, for example, on a job.
Some tape rule devices are provided by their manufacturer with spring clip members, which are usually attached to the rear wall of the tape rule device so that the spring clip member can be manually forced by the wearer downwardly over the top edge of the wearer's waist belt. The inventor, however, has also found that when using the spring clip member in this manner, the tape rule device often becomes accidently dislodged from his waist belt as he is getting in and out of a vehicle, or moving up and down ladders, or when climbing and bending or crawling over the surface of a roof or crawling into tight building spaces or crouching at a building site. In these situations and others, the bottom of the tape rule device will come into contact with the wearer's body and the spring clip member becomes dislodged from its retained position from the wearer's waist belt. Unless the wearer is quick enough to notice and grab the tape rule device, the device may drop to the roof and slide down over the surface of the roof and fall to the ground.
There are also known in the art leather tool pouches or holders for supporting only a single tape rule device that may be connected to the wearer's belt, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,821,933 issued to Seber. In some pouches or tool holders the tape rule device may be prevented from accidently falling out of or being accidently forced from the pouch or holder by a leather strap that is snap-connected to the pouch or holder. The inventor, however, has in time found this latter arrangement inconvenient in having to unsnap and then remembering to re-snap the leather strap in place. In the course of a day on the construction site, the tape rule device may have to be removed from its holder and replaced many times, and it is not always convenient and it is often distracting to be fumbling around without looking while trying to locate where the strap needs to be snapped in place again.
The opposite side walls of some tool holders for tape rule devices are tapered somewhat inwardly from the top opening to the bottom of the tool holder so that when the tape rule device is inserted by the wearer into the pocket of the tool holder, the tape rule device is forcibly moved by the wearer to its fully seated and wedged position within the pocket. Still, however, an accidental bump on the bottom of the tool holder will often cause a partial unintentioned dislodgment of the tape rule device from its fully seated and wedged position, and eventually the tape rule device may fall out of the pocket when the wearer is crawling over a roof, or is moving in a crouched position over a work site, or is leaning out of a window to accomplish some construction purpose.
In considering the various situations described above, and thinking about what would be most convenient to have in the way of a tool holder for carrying a tape rule device on the job without also having accidental dislodgments and the other distractions mentioned and without interfering with concentration on the work at hand on the job site, the inventor has developed what he believes to be a very practical and innovative tool holder for holding a tape rule device and by providing within the tool holder an arrangement by which the tape rule device is positively held within the pocket of the tool holder without fear of accidental dislodgment, and yet the tape rule device may by intention be easily slid into the tool holder and withdrawn therefrom with little conscious effort.
The inventor has provided within the pocket of the tool holder a retention member that cooperates with the spring clip member provided by manufacturers on the rear surface of a number of different tape rule devices, with the result that there is an interlocking engagement of the spring clip member with the retention member when the tape rule device is guided by the walls of the pocket as it is slid into the pocket of the tool holder. The spring clip member is readily and intentionally dislodged from such interlocking engagement with the retention member when the wearer moves his fingers into engagement with the bottom of the tape rule device through the opening provided at the bottom of the pocket of the tool holder and then moves the tape rule device upwardly from the pocket.
Although there are known hanger devices that have been employed on the outside of a multiple tool holding pouch, such as disclosed, for example, in FIG. 6 of Design Pat. No. 328,191, which issued to Reitz on Jul. 28, 1992, for supporting a tape rule device on the outside surface of the tool holder by the spring clip member on the tape rule device, as far as the inventor has been able to determine, it has apparently never occurred to manufacturers or to others to place such a hanger device on the inside of the pocket of the tool holder. It was probably thought that the pocket was sufficient by itself to retain the tape rule device without giving any thought as to what actually happens on the job in the situations described above.
When the retention member is used in the pocket of the tool holder, as disclosed by the inventor, it no longer performs the same function of support for the tape rule device as it does in the Reitz patent because the support function for the tape rule device is provided by the pocket itself when the tape rule device is in its fully seated position within the pocket of the tool holder. The retention member, therefore, then serves to interlock with the spring clip member on the rear surface of the tape rule device to prevent unintentioned dislodgment of the tape rule device.
The inventor, who is a carpenter and contractor, has still further found that the two tools that are most convenient always to have at hand and are used the most times are the tape rule device, as previously mentioned, and a hammer. When laying off a construction site, for example, the inventor uses the tape rule device to measure where wood stakes, for example, should be located, and then uses a hammer to drive the wood stakes into the ground, and may thereafter connect a string from stake to stake to establish straight guide lines therebetween for locating some construction activity to be initiated at that location. The inventor may also need to temporarily install partially driven nails in existing framing and then connect a string or cord between the nails to serve as guides for some other construction activity to be located at that site.
The inventor, therefore, has devised another embodiment of a tool holder that overcomes the objectionable features of some of the known tool holders, as described above, and which enables him to carry about his person the two most used tools in construction: a tape rule device and a hammer, as previously mentioned, or in some instances a hatchet instead of a hammer, in which case he may use the blunt end of the hatchet to drive in a wood stake or nail. In this manner also, the inventor is not burdened by carrying the weight of numerous other tools, and yet still he has the convenience of being able to carry on his person the two most often used tools in construction without fear of accidental dislodgment when climbing in and out of vehicles, or moving up and down ladders, climbing over roof surfaces, crouching, bending, hanging out over a window opening and making other similar movements. In this manner also, the inventor will have the assurance that the tools will remain with him, and that they may be quickly removed and replaced in the tool holder carried about his waist without conscious effort and attention.
Carrying devices for hammers and hatchets are already known in the prior art and they range from the formation of a simple cloth loop in one's work trousers for the insertion of the elongated handle therethrough of the hammer or hatchet, to specially designed leather holders, such as shown in Design Pat. No. 248,066 issued to Hillinger in 1978; in U.S. Pat. No. 4,106,679 issued to Hillinger in 1978; in Design Pat. No. 253,019 issued to Hillinger in 1979; and in U.S. Pat. No. 4,372,468 issued to Harvey in 1983.
The Hillinger patent, U.S. Pat. No. 4,106,679, for instance, discloses a tool support arrangement by which the hammer or hatchet is swivelly-connected to a pad that in turn is supported from a wearer's waist belt. The hammer or hatchet handle is inserted through a metal tool loop until the crosspiece (the head) of the hammer or hatchet comes to rest upon the top surface of the metal tool loop. The metal tool loop in turn is pivotally-connected or swivelly-connected to a pivot rod that extends at right angles from the pad so that the metal tool loop may be pivoted or swivelled about the pivot rod to facilitate insertion in the metal tool loop and removal from the metal tool loop of the hammer or hatchet.
The Harvey patent, U.S. Pat. No. 4,372,468, discloses a similar pivotal metal tool loop arrangement, with the exception that the metal tool loop is made up in part from a pair of spring-biased tool retention gates for rapid lateral entry of the handle of a hammer or hatchet into the metal tool loop. Since, however, the retention gates are designed to allow only pivotal inward movement and then pivotal outward movement only so far as to return to their retention position, the retention gates cannot be pivoted outwardly beyond their retention position to allow lateral retraction of the tool handle from the tool loop. Therefore, the hammer or hatchet must be withdrawn from the metal tool loop in the same manner as in the Hillinger patented construction.